Hazen Audel Instagram – Lekeaora, was my host father when I was filming w/ the Samburu in Kenya. When we first met him we asked where his son was. We wanted to do a Primal Survivor National Geographic documentary exhibiting the lives of Samburu warriors. One of his 7 sons, (3 still alive) was living afar with his family’s cattle as a warrior. Lekeaora & his wife had no idea where his son was- as warriors are typically gone from the age of 16 & return back at the age 23 years old- the age at which they are greatly respected for their accomplishments & are expected then to find a wife & get married.
The search was on for his son.
To accomplished the feat of finding them we had to search through leads after leads by other tribal families throughout a vast Samburu and Massai range of thousands of miles of desert, bush & mountains.
The search was made more complicated as rumors spread quickly that we were looking for them because of criminal accusations. So some people were giving out misleading information about their possible locations.
We got there in the end. The three warriors were ecstatic to see us & to find out we wanted to show off their incredible lives to the world.
When we found his son, he was with two other warriors taking care of about 80 cattle in remote dry valley. They were carrying the clothes on their backs, their weapons on hand or strapped onto their backs- machete, spear, club & machine gun. In the leather machete sheath was a large sharpened metal rod to do veterinary work & extract vicious thorns from their feet. They each also had chrome seiko digital watches, & small hand held makeup mirrors. (Warriors are heavily decorated & spend a lot of attention on their impressive appearance) The only other items were carried by a singular cow, a calabash container, and a special bow and arrow for extracting blood from the jugular vien of their cows.
(While living and traveling with the warriors for two weeks we only had mik and blood to sustain ourselves)
Lekeaora was an energetic & kind man. He took me in and was eager to show me off as his newest family member. We mended lots of fence and spent our days carrying for his animals that were about. More in comments: | Posted on 07/Sep/2023 14:50:25
